Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times and host of The Salim Muwakkil Show” on radio station WVON-AM in Chicago. Muwakkil was also contributing columnist for both the Chicago Sun-Times (1993 – 1997) and the Chicago Tribune (1998 – 2005). He is also a co-founder of Pacifica News’ network daily Democracy Now” program and served as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, University of Illinois, the Art Institute of Chicago and Chicago’s Columbia College.

As an editor for In These Times for more than 25 years, Salim Muwakkil has forged a reputation as one of the country’s most insightful writers on issues of African-American culture and politics.

Muwakkil started his journalism career as reporter for the Associated Press in Newark, New Jersey shortly before graduating from Rutgers University with a BA in Political Science. He soon moved on to become a copy editor and then managing editor at Muhammad Speaks-Bilalian News, the largest black-owned publication in the country.

Upon moving to Chicago, Muwakkil joined In These Times’ staff and became a contributing columnist to both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune.

Muwakkil has also written for the Washington Post, Chicago Reader, The Progressive, Newsday, Cineaste, Chicago Magazine, the Baltimore Sun, Z Magazine, the Toronto Star, Emerge Magazine, The Black Scholar, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Utne Reader.

Muwakkil is a frequent contributor to “Chicago Tonight” and “Beyond the Beltway,” two Chicago-based public affairs programs.

Muwakkil has won a variety of journalism awards including the “Top Ten Media Heroes of 1994,” from the Institute of Alternative Journalism, the “Black Rose Achievement Award for 1997,” from the League of Black Women, the 2001 Studs Terkel Award for Journalistic Excellence from the Chicago-based Community Media Workshop and the 2004 Lillian Award for Excellence in Journalism, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

He was also a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society Institute.

In his spare time, Muwakkil serves as a board member for the Progressive Media Project and the Chicago-based Public Square. He has been a faculty member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest’s Urban Studies Program, and an adjunct professor at Columbia College, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Justice for Jon Burge’s Victims?
Salim Muwakkil
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Al Qaeda Plays the Malcolm Card
Salim Muwakkil
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Proud of Obama … For Now
Salim Muwakkil
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An Exemplar of Reconciliation
Salim Muwakkil
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The War We Won’t Talk About
Salim Muwakkil
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Getting Messy With Jesse Helps Obama
Salim Muwakkil
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Chicago’s Olympic Dreams Undeserved
Salim Muwakkil
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Israel’s Openly Secret Nukes
Salim Muwakkil
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The Vendetta Against Black Men
Salim Muwakkil
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A Speech Even Condi Could Love
Salim Muwakkil
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The Man or the Movement
Salim Muwakkil
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How Black is Obama?
Salim Muwakkil
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Nas: Whose Word Is This?
Salim Muwakkil
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Come on Cosby, Stop Hatin’
Cosby makes blanket indictments of an entire class of black people and offers only exhortations from the sidelines
Salim Muwakkil
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Harold Washington Remembered
Washington's candidacy forged political unity among Chicago's notoriously fractious black community and helped bring the city's feuding Latino groups (including Mexicans and Puerto Ricans) together
Salim Muwakkil
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Jena and the Post-Civil Rights Fallacy
Around the country, black males face a criminal justice system that incarcerates them more than eight times the rate of whites
Salim Muwakkil
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Smearing Israel’s Critics
Former DePaul professor Finkelstein joins a growing list of academics censored for criticizing the Holy Land's foreign policy
Salim Muwakkil
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The Counterproductive War on Gangs
The conclusion of the report, "Gang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety Strategies," persuasively argues that punitive policies of policing that specifically target gangs increase rather than decrease gang violence
Salim Muwakkil
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The Squandering of Obama
Political masterminds have transformed the candidate from a political visionary into an electoral product like every other presidential aspirant
Salim Muwakkil
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Entrapping Inflated Threats
Terrorist "plots" exposed by the administration have been notable for their lack of credible threat and the whiff of political opportunism
Salim Muwakkil
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Entrapping Inflated Threats
Was the terrorist plot to blow up JFK Airport a threat or a joke?
Salim Muwakkil
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Blaming Hip-Hop for Imus
Instead of blaming rappers for vulgarity, social resources should be channeled to combat the conditions that create those lyrics
Salim Muwakkil
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Globalism with Combat Boots
Salim Muwakkil
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Slavery and the State of Denial
Salim Muwakkil
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For Israel’s Sake
Salim Muwakkil
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Baracks Black Dilemma
Salim Muwakkil
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The Caracas Consensus
Salim Muwakkil
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The CBC and Speaker Pelosi
Progressive members of the Congresssional Black Caucus poised to chair committees, meanwhile "Blue Dog" and "New" Democrats pulling the party to the center.
Salim Muwakkil
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Farrakhan Steps Back
Farrakhan's failing health causes the Nation of Islam to look to the future.
Salim Muwakkil
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The Neocons Lexicon
Republican term "Islamofacism" conflates the war on terro as a battle between the Enlightenment and Theocracy.
Salim Muwakkil
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Corporal Punishments Hidden Costs
Corporal punishment of children linked to later interpersonal violence.
Salim Muwakkil
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The Reparations Bandwagon
Hurricane Katrina opens eyes to the need for reparations to repair the race/class divide.
Salim Muwakkil
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Police Torture and the Need for Repair
Special prosecutors Edward Egan and Robert Boyle report that Chicago Police led by Commander Jon Burge likely tortured dozens.
Salim Muwakkil
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A Terrifying Distraction
Government entrapment leads to the unlawful arrest of seven Hatian men falsely accused of terrorist actvity.
Salim Muwakkil
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The Persecution of the American Taliban?
John Walker Lindh was misunderstood and mislabeled as an "American Taliban."
Salim Muwakkil
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Black Politics Paradigm Paradox
Salim Muwakkil
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Diplomatic Hypocrisy in the Middle East
Salim Muwakkil
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Science: The Drug Wars Latest Victim
Salim Muwakkil
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Black Men: The Crisis Continues
Salim Muwakkil
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The Israel Lobby and its Discontents
Salim Muwakkil
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The Battle for Fred Hampton Way
Salim Muwakkil
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The Kanye West Effect
Salim Muwakkil
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Islam vs. the West: Clashing Sensibilities
Salim Muwakkil
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Black History Month Matters
Salim Muwakkil
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Reflections on Tookie’s Execution
Salim Muwakkil
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What’s the 411 on 9/11?
Salim Muwakkil
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Torture in the Homeland
Salim Muwakkil
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Jump-Starting a Movement
Salim Muwakkil
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